Life In Black And White
by violet-phoenix-rose
Summary: For the Bridget Jones' Diary challenge. Luna is nearly 31, hopelessly single, and in for a very crazy series of events. Rating will probably change later on. Latest chapter features the result of a bad matchmaking attempt.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: for the Bridget Jones' Diary challenge. Luna is journaling/narrating. Watch and see what happens...

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January 1 - pretty late at night

Ah, January! That lovely month in which the year starts, I celebrate another birthday (although 'celebrate' might be the wrong term), and I start to wonder why on Earth I am still single. Honestly, I am nearly thirty-one years old, but my luck in relationships has been bad at best! It made a lot of sense when I was younger - to say that I was strange during my school years would be an understatement - but I've dealt with a lot of that stuff. I'm still me, just... not so publicly. Yet the more I appear to blend in, the worse my luck gets in love. The sweet irony of this is that, until recently, I didn't mind that. I mind now, though. Maybe the fact that everyone I can think of from school (God knows how long ago _that_ was) minus one or two people is married with two or three children finally got to me.

I have made a list of New Year's Resolutions only once in my life, the year I turned seventeen. That was a very short list, with only one item on it - survive. Now I find myself needing to make a list of resolutions again, but this time for a different purpose. There is only one thing on this list as well, though - find a boyfriend or something who doesn't mind my craziness. I have never dated anyone who could have been Mr. Right. However, I have dated Mr. Cheapskate, Mr. Already-Married, Mr. Loudmouth, Mr. Fatalistic, and Mr. Codependent. Perhaps 'dated' is even too strong a word - with all of those, I went out to dinner or a party with them once and then realized things simply would not work.

Let us look on the bright side, what little of one there is - my best friend has apparently decided I _like_ being single and has therefore decided to stop setting me up with everyone she can think of. I do not like singleness half as much as she apparently thinks that I do, but it's safer for me if she thinks I'm not interested in relationships. I am well known in my circle as the world's most terrible liar, and my friend can see through almost anything, so I count myself lucky that she has given up. Let's just say that I wouldn't wish her attempts at matchmaking on any person alive.


	2. Chapter 2

January 5 - some God-awful hour of the night

Over the past four days-ish, I have managed to find myself with three problems, which are as follows. Just when I'd thought she'd given up on me, Ginny has decided that _her_ New Year's Resolution is to find someone for me. I am finding myself... not exactly attracted to, but certainly interested in someone who I swear to everything is every single thing I'm _not_ looking for. To top it all off - the icing on the cake, people might say - I am now something of an insomniac, hence the fact that I'm trying to write this at around two in the morning.

I do not know why I am so mad about the attempted matchmaking, except for this - every time I have gone out with someone Ginny found for me, things have gone _spectacularly_ wrong. By this, I mean that over the ten years she's been setting me up, I have done the following: caused or helped cause three restaurant fires (all Chinese places, oddly enough), been kicked out of two cinemas (just as well I'm not much of a movie-goer), caused approximately a dozen traffic jams, and accidently sicced a pirana on a very prominent orthodontist (also at a Chinese restaurant). As you can probably tell, I am likely to go mad if the matchmaking keeps up - which, if my friend has her way, it will until something works out. And that, believe me, is not going to happen.

Now, about the interest/attraction that is going to be the end of my nice, relatively stable life. Please note that I never said I have a _normal_ life - for the past eight years (after six years trying to find myself), I have worked with the Wizarding Cryptozoology Society of Great Britain. My life's mission, the way I see it, is to continue my father's work in the area and, if I possibly can, to prove the existence of Nargles. Some think I'm overly obsessed with that project, but I have found some credible evidence over the years. At least _I_ haven't spent my career trying to catch the Loch Ness Monster, like two of my coworkers have...

So yesterday was the first day of work after the holidays - on principle, the Society closes for two weeks to allow its workers the ability to properly celebrate Christmas. We are a small outfit affiliated with but not directly working for the Ministry, which has been the subject of numerous fights over the years. Yesterday we had four things happen - our neverending request for official Ministry funding/space was finally approved (we've been lobbying for that for as long as I can remember), Lara and Lena (the Loch-Ness-Monster-obsessed twin sisters) have finally found some plausible evidence for their research, three of the Society workers (including me, oddly enough,) have been invited to speak at the International Wizarding Cryptozoology Conference in April, and we have a new team member. This person, of course, is the subject of my new problem. His name is Rolf Scamander, he is slightly older than the majority of the Society (most of us are in our late twenties or early thirties), and (so far as I can tell) he is now among us because he is ninety-five percent of the way to proving the existence of the Moka, which he says is a large, bad-tempered lizard that shrinks. This simply can't end well...

I am going to spare myself the rant about insomnia - although I will say that it has got _nothing _to do with nightmares. Or excessive caffine, for that matter - let me just say that the stuff is not my addictive/stimulating substance of choice. Then again, I don't _have_ an addictive/stimulating substance of choice!

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A/N: Please review and stay tuned for updates!


	3. Chapter 3

January 11 - early evening

The last week has been more chaotic than ever - and yes, that is possible. The chief bit of strangeness is that Ginny has found someone for me who she says balances me. Because she is my best friend and I have run out of excuses to say no to her matchmaking schemes, I agreed to go out with the man tonight on one condition, which is that I will be nowhere near a Chinese restaurant. G complied, of course - in fact, she says that Edgar (the man I'm going out with tonight) doesn't _like_ Chinese food. That can only be a good sign.

Will write after I get back - I have forty-five minutes to get decent...

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January 12 - ridiculously early in the morning

My date actually went quite well, at least the first part of it did. Edgar Gibbon is a nice, intelligent person, and I might possibly like him. We went to an Italian restaurant, which was quite nice, and it was an enjoyable evening... until we left the restaurant.

What happened was this - unbeknowest to the pair of us, a group of pyromaniacs were testing fireworks in the parking lot. Because this is my life, and weird things frequently happen in my life, it couldn't be just a random pack of Muggle pyros. No, it was that brother of G's, the one with the shop, and he was every kind of ticked-off when I realized who it was and (in a moment that would've made G proud) started snapping at him and the other people in his group. This, of course, is where poor planning on the part of the pyros turned the evening into a nightmare. All their fireworks - in other words, enough explosives to blow up a building - were in a stack right against the outer wall of the restaurant. You can figure out the rest - one of them had bad aim, and next thing anyone knew, _**KABOOM!!!!!**_ The entire wall of the restaurant collapsed, and (because this was in a parking lot) the explosion did in two delivery vans. Needless to say, I am now not allowed within 100 meters of that restaurant, even though none of that was my doing. G is going to get it when she hears about this...

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A/N: a big thanks goes to yellow14, who wanted to see some of the matchmaking attempts in action. Suggestions are always welcome, especially now that I have no idea what I'm doing with this project. Thanks for reading, and please press the pretty button in the center that says 'review'.


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